Perhaps you’ll remember that it didn’t take long for our family to make the acquaintance with a hospital after moving to South Africa in 2010.

Less than a month in I was struck down by tick bite fever, except I didn’t know it, and ended up going to the emergency room.

About a year later, over New Year’s, our youngest daughter Sunshine made an unpleasant acquaintance with the corner of a night stand when jumping on the bed with her brother Jabulani and needed several stitches in her forehead.

A bit later, that same brother in turn made an even more unpleasant acquaintance with the foot of an attacking soccer player when trying to save the goal, and needed surgery on his arm.

Not to mention getting the whole family vaccinated for yellow fever, getting tested for concussions after rugby matches, and keeping an orthodontist busy around the clock with three out of four kids with more wiring in their mouths than behind your cable box.

The good news in all that? Let’s just say that we definitely got our money’s worth out of our global healthcare plan!

Are you moving to South Africa? Then you better get yourself such a plan too. The following is a guest post sponsored by Medibroker International, a company ...

I’m not the world’s biggest shopper. I don’t love the excitement of going out there to hunt for bargains. I don’t revel in waiting with bated breath for the grand opening of a long-awaited store. And I don’t go all crazy over finding my favorite brand-names far from home.

Because I don’t love shopping, I’ve become really good at making it efficient. Especially as a newly-arrived expat, you need to know where to buy your steaks, your chocolate chips, your converter plugs. Especially your converter plugs, if you live in a country like South Africa ...

Based on the latest census in 2011, roughly 9% of South Africa’s population is white. Within that group, about 61% are Afrikaans speakers, 36% are English speakers, and the remaining 3% speak other languages such as Portuguese.